Beijing Morning Post, 6/20/08

According to an informed source, Chinese online search engine Baidu's (Nasdaq: BIDU) 'sample listening' music pages have received their first advertising order worth tens of millions of RMB, covering a year of advertising from July. Baidu has also formed alliances with almost 70 record companies including Emperor Entertainment Group, Huayi Brothers and Ocean Butterflies.

An employee with Baidu's digital music alliance estimated that the new advertising deal will increase income for the record companies by between eight and ten-fold. A Baidu digital music spokesperson said yesterday: "Last year we paid out RMB 40 mln to advertising network partners, and we aim to see the digital music network surpass that figure."